Deck Of Many Things

Item is 11.2cm long, 5.6cm wide and 1.8cm thick. Item is a swirled pearly white and light-brown color and appears to be made from a hard organic resin, possibly ivory or well-polished wood (see attached images).

Investigation

Artifact appears to be a deck of overlarge playing or tarot cards constructed out of a type of non-flexible resin. There were 22 cards observed in the "deck", and the entire deck was contained inside a form-fitting wooden box with a slot and finger-wide slide in the top that allowed an individual to slide out only the top card; similar to the way a Vegas card shoe works. The three of us in the lab decided to pull all the cards out taking turns.

I was able to slide the top card out without any difficulty, and found it had a stylized image of Earth’s moon (luna) on it. A few seconds later the card dissolved into a small cloud of smoke that disappeared back into the shoe, but nothing else happened. We inspected the shoe to discover it still had 22 cards in it.

SPC Kong pulled the next card out and revealed it to have the image of seven different cups on it. Her card also dissolved, and a few seconds later she was struck repeatedly by exactly fifty (50) large golf-ball sized gems that suddenly appeared out of thin air and struck her at a high velocity from all directions. She was rushed to medical, but aside from about some spectacular bruises and a mild concussion, was otherwise okay.

Pvt. Gomes and I returned to the lab to continue the experiment, now wearing body armor and helmets. We determined there were again 22 cards in the shoe and Pvt. Gomes drew the next card. He revealed the image to show eight swords, his card dissolved, and he collapsed to the ground. A return to the medical revealed Pvt. Gomes is in a coma; his body is alive and functioning perfectly well, but he is completely brain dead with no higher-function brainwaves.

At this time I decided to cease experimenting with item XA-1121, as it has demonstrated a dramatically negative effect. Artifact is being returned to containment storage. The gems "created" by Kong’s card have remained and indicate no xenoactivity.